The Netherlands has, as I understand it, not “legalized” heroin per se but massively decriminalized it by offering long-term addicts medicinal heroin as part of the country’s general healthcare system. Wikipedia has a brief article on it but I was specifically wondering how it has generally worked out. Anything there to support or refute the notion that the US should give up its “War On Drugs”?
Portugal went further.
TL;DR version - it works.
A more accurate name for the US policy should be “War On People Who Take Drugs”. It’s stupid, wasteful can’t work and has been a massive failure.
Even closer to home, Vancouver BC has an interesting program for addicts. Three times per day they check into a monitored city facility for safe, prescription injections of medical heroin (Diacetylmorphine HCL). This is much like the Swiss program.
Cost is US$21,000 per year. I’d bet that is cheaper than arrest, trial and incarceration.
Here is the wiki article on the topic.
I would say that these programs are a good refutation of the American War on Drugs. We have lost, the cartels have won. As we have learned from alcohol and guns, prohibition does not work as a means of curing violence or “moral failings”.